Bookworm Room

Conservatives deal with facts and reach conclusions; liberals have conclusions and sell them as facts.

Donald Trump is Archie Bunker and an un-Chance the Gardener, rolled into one *UPDATED*

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13-trump-laughs.w529.h352I’m still trying to get a handle on Donald Trump’s unexpected success. This post, therefore, isn’t about whether Republicans should or should not vote for him. It is, instead, an effort to analyze why voters from both parties are drawn to him. Because I believe that Trump is essentially a pop culture figure, my analysis today looks at him through a pop culture lens.

My starting point is the 1970s, which was a turning point in America culture, much as we are in a turning point today. Back then, the Depression and WWII generation had hit middle age and older, and the Baby Boom generation was starting to control society.

Into this transitional era came All In The Family and Archie Bunker. The show’s creator, Norman Lear, and his stable of liberal writers, envisioned Archie Bunker as a truly malevolent character whom they could ridicule to comedic effect, while simultaneously destroying the “primitive” shibboleths of the Greatest Generation.

Lear and his cohorts were surprised and chagrined when Archie, instead of being a reviled figure, became one of the most popular characters in TV history. If you read about All In The Family’s success, the conventional wisdom is that Carroll O’Connor was such a brilliant actor and decent human being that he imbued Archie with a humanity that appealed to viewers no matter what words they put into his mouth. That conventional wisdom, of course, comes from Leftists.

I’d argue that Archie’s appeal was a lot more simple than that. Archie may have been crude and insensitive in the words given him, but the audience quickly figured out that he was the one who spoke to old-fashioned values and practical common sense. The show didn’t destroy the old ideas.  Through Archie, it gave them a voice.

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Horrible people on TV

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archie-edith-bunker“Come watch Veep with me,” Mr. Bookworm said this evening.  “It’s got really clever writing and a great cast, and it’s often very funny.”   He’s absolutely right and normally that would be an enticement to watch a TV show.  The problem for me is that each of the characters is loathsome — stupid, vindictive, petty, arrogant, hate-filled, venomous.  Moreover, they exhibit these traits against each other, their colleagues and friends.  Veep isn’t the only show that has such horrible people.

In fact, being horrible lately seems to be a prerequisite for hit shows:  A psychopathic chemistry teacher who becomes a drug kingpin (Breaking Bad); a mafia kingpin who kills lots of people (The Sopranos); a devious, dishonest ad men and the equally devious, dishonest, desperate, addicted, and adulterous people who inhabit his world (Mad Men); and a sociopathic bootlegger and his psychopathic cohorts (Boardwalk Empire) are just a few of the horrible people who spring to mind in the top-rated shows for adults.

And Lord knows, we all know about kid shows, with smart aleck, sarcastic, disrespectful, know-it-all kids smugly triumphing over stupid, venal adults.  It ain’t the Brady Bunch any more.

I don’t know whether popular TV shows represent a mirror we hold up to ourselves or if they are a projection of what we’d like to be.  All I know is that, in the old days, most of the stars of TV shows, barring a few overwrought soap operas, were people one could like.  Lucille Ricardo might have been immature and self-centered, but she was also enthusiastic and she always led with her heart.  So many of those shows ended with a kiss or a hug between the main characters.  Leave It To Beaver, The Brady Bunch, Three’s Company, All In The Family, M*A*S*H — no matter how vapid they may be now or how politically correct, they involved characters who were striving to be good or who were, at the very least, silly.  None were bad.  Even Archie Bunker, with all his awful “right-wing American” prejudices had a solid core that endeared him to audiences.  When push came to shove, and no matter how reluctantly, Archie did the right thing (at least according to Norman Lear’s rubric of what was right).

Anyway, it’s just a thought.  Perhaps I’m putting too golden a glow on the shows I grew up watching.  I just know that I really hate spending time in the company of today’s TV characters.  I have this terrible sense of revulsion when I’m around them too long.